A Thousand Dollars More at the Pump
The great American road trip just got about $1,000 more expensive.
Driving the "optimal" US road trip, hitting the top landmark in each of the lower 48 states plus Washington, D.C., would cost about $2,350 in gas today, per Yahoo Finance.
In 2015, the same trip cost about $1,300.
The route: 49 stops, 13,949 miles and about 224 hours behind the wheel.
A Consumer Number in Disguise
The road trip index is a novelty route with a serious number inside it. An 80 percent increase in the fuel cost of the same miles over a decade is the kind of slow, compounding price pressure that shows up everywhere in household budgets without ever making a headline of its own, and it lands hardest on the discretionary trips families can simply choose not to take.
Gasoline is also the price Americans see most often, posted on signs they pass daily, which is why a figure like this one travels: it converts a decade of pump prices into a single bill for a trip many people have actually driven some version of.
Options and Market Impact
The direct beneficiaries of higher pump prices are the refiners and integrated producers behind names like Exxon Mobil and Chevron, while the cost side lands on travel demand: hotel groups like Marriott and Hilton depend on exactly the kind of discretionary driving trips this index prices.
Watch the weekly national average gasoline price into the holiday travel season. Sustained prices at these levels argue for shorter trips and nearer destinations, which is where the consumer story shows up in bookings.
Bottom Line
Per Yahoo Finance, the optimal 49-stop American road trip costs about $2,350 in gas today, against about $1,300 in 2015. Same roads, same landmarks, roughly $1,000 more to reach them.
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